Production of dough for making of various types of bake products, particularly bread and roll type products, has traditionally utilized what is termed the batch type process. This process involves the forming of a predetermined quantity of dough which in bakeries for producing large quantities of the product may involve a batch that is of the order of 500 pounds. This dough, once it is mixed and blended, is then utilized by feeding it into apparatus that will mechanically divide the dough into the desired portions for forming of the particular product. Once the portions of dough are formed, these may be then subjected to further mechanical operation in forming them into the desired shapes and configurations which are placed in the baking pans. While the batch type process does provide control over obtaining a batch of the dough having the desired characteristics such as consistency, such dough products having yeast as an ingredient results in a constant change in the characteristics of the dough during the time periods normally involved in utilizing that quantity of dough. There will be a significant change in the characteristics of the dough as between the first portions which are most likely the ideal and the last portions.
There have been attempts to automate the operations to effect economy in time and in particular as to cost. Automation of baking operations necessitates mechanical handling and conveying of the dough from a mixing station to a utilization station which may include dividers and other portion forming equipment. To effect transport of the formed dough, mechanical pumps are incorporated into a tube-type conduit system to feed the dough from the mixing station to the utilization stations. A substantial disadvantage has been encountered in use of mechanical pumps for this purpose for many types of dough products in that the mechanical pumps tend to change the texture characteristics of the dough and result in a dough that does not provide the optimum quality in the baked products. Other characteristics of the dough that are adversely effected by the mechanical pumping action and conduit transport are the strength grain texture of the dough and which changes in characteristics carry over into the baked products themselves. Furthermore, lower quality dough has a significant adverse effect on the appearance of the bake product and in many cases also a substantial diminishing of shelf life.
The problem and disadvantages associated with automation through use of pump-type conveying or transport systems for the dough have been recognized and there have been some attempts to solve the problems. One solution has been to provide apparatus placed in downstream relationship to the pumping apparatus and prior to the utilization station to further process the dough. Typical of such apparatus are structures that include a chamber through which the dough is caused to flow and having mechanical agitating mechanisms that further operate on the dough. These agitating mechanisms have included structures in the form of crank devices and also of helical screw-type devices. However, the apparatus which has been employed has not been found to perform in a sufficiently satisfactory manner. Accordingly, the automated systems have generally not been employed in connection with dough that is utilized in baking of bread and roll type products.